Holy Paladin Helpdesk - 4.0.1 and Cataclysm

I am sure you are hearing a lot of horror stories about the new realms of healing in the upcoming patch, and may be worried about how your favorite class, the Holy Paladin, is going to be effected. In truth, so was I.

Fear not however, as Holy Paladin are still going to be a very competent and a much more well rounded healing class.

There are some things you need to know, however, and I will be going over these spells and talents with you in this guide, and offering my insight as I see it.

Before we get going I want to thank ranran90 for the pre 4.0.1 Holy Paladin Guide and I will most likely quote from that guide in certain places; fear not, credit will be given as I do so.

Spells and Abilities
As you may by now be aware, we only have 36 talent points as a level 80 character, and we get bonus talents and spells dictated by how many points we spend in a particular talent tree. Some of our spells are changed considerably. To make these changes more eye-catching I will color code the text to help point out the following:

Red - Totally newOrange - Major ChangeGreen - Minor Change
Black - No ChangeBlue - Change Tracker; Ways I see the spells as being changed.Purple - Theory crafting; Ways / Situations I see a spell being used

(TT) indicates the spell is earned by spending points in a specific talent .

The following spells are ones obtained only through the Holy tree. There are many other spells that come from other talent trees.

Aura Mastery (TT) - Instant Cast; 2 minute Cool down
Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effects of all other aura by 100% for 6 seconds

Beacon of Light (TT) - Instant Cast; 60yd range

The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all members of your raid or party within a 60 yard radius. Each heal you cast on party members will also heal the Beacon for 50% of the amount healed. Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts for 1.50 min.

The beacon only receives 50% healing now instead of 100%; this may significantly reduce our over healing. We may now also find ourselves directly healing the BOL; which sounds dumb, but with talent points, will generate the all new Holy Power.

Cleanse and Purify have been combined to one spell. With talents, this will also be able to purge a Magic Effect also. I will do some research as if one cleanse will remove all debuffs at the same time, or if you have to cast the spell multiple times to remove multiple debuffs. My hope is this is not the case, if so we are spending a lot of global cool downs in a debuff intense fight.

Concentration Aura
All party or raid members within 40 yards lose 35% less casting or channeling time when damaged. Players may only have one Aura on them per Paladin at any one time.

This replaces Divine Illumination. Divine Illumination reduced mana consumption by 50%. Now it seems we have a mini Heroism/Bloodlust all to ourselves. If this ability is popped at the same time as Heroism/Bloodlust I can imagine the effects will be violent

Divine Light; 40 yd range, 3 sec cast; 30% of base mana
A large heal that heals a friendly target. Good for periods of heavy damage.

This is a new direct heal that in my opinion replaces Holy Light as we know it now. It casts the same speed, it heals for about the same amount; so basically, this is out new big heal. (30% of your base mana, is basically the mana you would have if you was wearing no gear at all.)

Divine Plea - Instant Cast; 2min Cool down
You gain 10% of your total mana over 15 sec, but the amount healed by your healing spells is reduced by 50%.

They have slashed the mana regeneration again. Now it is only 10%. However with Glyphs this is increased to 15% By the looks of Divine Favor, you will almost certainly want to pop this at the same time as Divine Plea or during times of softer damage.

So flash is a fast strong heal consuming a good amount of mana, and Holy Light is a small heal, very low mana cost, and slower. I have been thinking about this long and hard, because I was thinking, With Devine Light what possible use is a slow soft heal when we have Divine Light and Flash of Light. After really discussing this; Holy Light will be the top up spell which is greatly impacted by haste. So come Cataclysm I think Paladins will ultimately put a lot of stock into haste to use Holy light, in a similar way to who we currently use flash of light. What i think blizzard tried to do is to get rid of the spam flash mentality that some people have fallen into. We can no longer heal a nice fast soft heal made good by a ton of crit. I hope this provokes a lot of discussion in the comments.

In the general order of our direct cast heals:
Divine Light = Strongest heal, Slow and Mana Hungry (30% Base Mana)
Good For Spike Damage on multiple targets when used in conjunction with Beacon of Light
Flash of Light = Moderate heal, Fast and Mana Hungry (27% Base Mana)
Clutch heal for Spike Damage on a direct target. The benefits of this spell transferred onto your Beacon of Light target are good, but I would possibly use this spell to directly heal the beacon target (yes, actually placing a direct heal onto someone with beacon) in quick succession to generate quick charges of Holy Power.

Holy Light = Weaker heal, Slow (same as Divine Light) and Mana Generous (9% Base Mana)
Heal used for topping off raid members or tanks in periods of predictable and/or soft damage. It can be good in conjunction with Beacon of Light, IF the Beacon target is NOT your primary heal target. This heal may also be a great heal to use when under the effects of Heroism/Bloodlust, and/or Divine Favor, however not when using Divine Plea.

Holy Shock - 8% of base mana, 20(enemy)/40(friendly) yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec Cool down
Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing Holy damage to an enemy, or healing to an ally, and grants a charge of Holy Power.

This is a primary skill (tier 1) This spell is HEAVILY effected by a passive talent called Daybreak. In addition to that, you can also spec into a talent called Speed of Light and Infusion of Light, which Holy Shock will directly affect.

Holy Wrath - 20% of base mana, Instant cast, 15 sec Cool down
Sends bolts of holy power in all directions, causing Holy damage divided among all targets within 10 yds and stunning all Demons and Undead for 3 sec.

Light of Dawn (TT) - 21% of base mana, Instant cast, 30 sec Cool down
Send a wave of healing energy before you, healing yourself and all friendly targets up to 30 yards away for a smaller amount
This is an area of effect heal that heals for a little bit less than a holy shock.

Lay on Hands - 40 yd range, Instant, 10 min Cool down
Heals a friendly target for an amount equal to the Paladin's maximum health and restores some of their mana. If used on self, the Paladin cannot be targeted by Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Hand of Protection, or self-targeted Lay on Hands again for 2 min.

Meditation - Passive
Allows 50% of your mana regeneration from Spirit to continue while in combat.

This is what is known as a primary skill (tier 3). Issued when you spend X amount of talent points in the holy tree. We now use spirit as paladins in place of MP5

Redemption - 64% of base mana, 30 yd range, 10 sec cast
Brings a dead ally back to life with 35% of maximum health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat.

Seal of Insight - 14% of base mana, Instant cast
Fills the Paladin with divine power for 30 min, giving each single-target melee attack a chance to heal the Paladin and restore 4% of the paladin's base mana. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time.
Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal Holy damage to an enemy.
Seal of Light and Wisdom as we know it, have now been replaced and combined into Seal of Insight

Turn Evil - 9% of base mana, 20 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
The targeted undead or demon enemy will be compelled to flee for up to 20 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Only one target can be turned at a time.

Walk in the Light - Passive
Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by 10%.

This is no longer an ability you gain from directly spending a talent point. This is a primary skill that is earned upon spending X amount of talent points in the holy tree (tier 2)

Word of Glory - Instant; 40yard range; 1,2,3 Holy Power
Heals a friendly target for (a little less than holy shock) multiplied by the amount of Holy power charged.

This is a nice instant heal which is mana free. You basically have another instant heal, that can heal for the same amount as a Holy shock multiplied by the amount of charges (up to 3) of holy power you have.

Mastery - Illuminated Healing - Passive
Your healing spells also place an absorb shield on your target for a percentage of the amount healed lasting 6 sec. Each point of Mastery increases the absorb amount by an additional 1%

All heals will now also generate an absorb to replace the Sacred Shield, which is now gone. Mastery is a new statistic which is on gear which can be reforged (reduce a stat (Haste, Critical, Spirit) by 40% and swap it with another stat) From what I can tell you have mastery in a numerical form, but 400 master does not mean you place a 400% absorb shield. Mastery scales to a %, much like defense, hit rating, haste etc. and it is that % what constitutes as a point.

This by far has got to be one of the most exciting spells for a Holy Paladin. A raid-wide heal over time. The only drawback I see is that it requires the group to be in a 10 yard radius. To me this spell seems very much like a Druid's Tranquility

Talents
By now you have probably heard me mention passive tier abilities based on how many talent points you invest in your tree. And that means now more than ever we have a bunch of talents that causes proc effects. This will change the way we heal as Paladins in both pve and pve. Come patch Tuesday, undoubtedly one of the first things you will see is "Your talents have been reset" Read on for an idea of what you are going to be faced with.

The Primary Skills

As previously mentioned you will gain 4 abilities in the holy tree, just for investing points in the tree itself. These are Primary talents which Blizzard felt are a must have for someone within that talent tree. Here is how it works. When you see the screen above, click on the "View Talent Tree" button. This will bring your talent tree up in a more traditional presentation.

Line One:

On the first line we have three talents we can choose from:

A. Arbiter of the Light
Increases the critical effect chance of your Judgment and Templar's Verdict by 6%/12%
You can place 2 talent points here, obviously one increases the effect by 6%, the other by 12%. This seems to me that this effect is more geared toward PVP than anything else. As you will discover; Paladins in PVP have a lot more tools at their disposal encouraging them to do far more than just sit back and heal. Having talent points here may also be a great idea for leveling your paladin to 85 if you wish to level as Holy.

B. Protector of the InnocentCasting any heal on a target including yourself, will grant a heal on yourself

This is like a mini beacon of light, but passive. Very self explanatory, but again, to me seems purely a PVP talent. This talent may have an advantage if Cataclysm contains raids where everyone takes regular ticking damage.

Three talent points here and should be an essential choice for both PVP and PVE healers. Works much in the same way Judgment of the Pure does now.

To activate the 2nd line we HAVE to spend 5 points in the first line of the Holy tree. In my View of PVE healing, I have selected 3 points in Judgment of the Pure, and 2 in Protector of the Innocent.

Line Two:

On the second line we have three talents we can choose from:A. Clarity of Purpose
Reduces the casting time of your Holy Light and Divine Light spells by 0.15/0.35/0.5 sec.

You can place 3 talent points here, obviously one increases the effect by 0.15s, the other by 0.35s and the third 0.5s. As I mentioned earlier haste is becoming a huge part of the way we heal, and this talent provides faster casting times of two of our castable healing spells. This talent will be good for both PVE and PVP

B. Last Word
Gives your Word of Glory a 30%/60% increased critical chance when used on targets with 35% or less health.

2 Points here, you are going to be encouraged to use this on dying targets for a last ditch heal. I can see this talent having place in both PVE and PVP but I lean towards PVP more.

To activate the 3rd line we HAVE to spend 5 points in the second line of the Holy tree. In my View of PVE healing, I have selected 3 points in Clarity of Purpose, and 2 in Last word.

Line Three:

On the third line we have four talents we can choose from:A. Denounce
Reduces the mana cost of Exorcism by 38%/75%. In addition, you have a 25%/50% chance when casting Holy Shock to make your next Exorcism spell instant and cost no mana.

You can place 2 talent points here. This talent will be good for both PVP and leveling as Holy

1 Points here, you are going to be encouraged to use this when in intense healing situations, or to help counteract the diminished healing effect of divine plea. I can see this talent having place PVE and PVP battlegrounds, but is see it as essential PVE more.

C. Infusion of Light (dependency of Speed of Light)
Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light by 0.75/1.5 sec.

Two points here, and an all round must have for PVE, PVP and leveling talent. This also must be chosen if you wish to use Speed of Light.

D. Daybreak
Your Flash of Light, Holy Light and Divine Light have a 10%/20% chance to make your next Holy Shock not trigger a cool down if used within 12 sec.

You can place 2 talent points here. This talent provides more instant heal potentials. This talent will be good for both PVE and PVP healing. Chain Abilities (those which trigger the need to use a 2nd spell to be 100% effective) now include an alert/screen flash. Below is an example of a Daybreak proc. As you can see, the golden angelic wings let you know when this effect is active. It will stay on the screen until you either complete the chain ability, or the 12s expire

To activate the 4th line we HAVE to spend 5 points in the 3rd line of the Holy tree. In my View of PVE healing, I have selected 1 points in Devin Favor 2 in Infusion of Light, and 2 in Daybreak.

Line Four:

On the fourth line we have four talents we can choose from:

A. Enlightened Judgments
Grants hit rating equal to 50%/100% of any Spirit gained from items or effects, and increases the range of your Judgment by 10 yards. In addition your Judgment instantly heals you for a small/medium amount.

You can place 2 talent points here. This talent excellent for PVP and leveling as Holy. Personally this is something I would omit from a PVE healing build.

B. Beacon of Light (dependency of Tower of Radiance)

This is explained in more depth in the Spell section, however a quick note is that it heals holder of Beacon for 50% instead of 100%. Also directly healing your beacon generates Holy power. More because of the talent this unlocks this is a must have talent.

C. Speed of Light (dependant of Infusion of Light)
Casting Holy Shock grants 5%/10%/30% spell haste for your next Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light, and casting Holy Radiance grants you 10%/20%/60% movement speed for 4 sec. Also lowers the cool down on Holy Radiance by 10/20/30 sec at all times.Three points here, and an all round must have for PVE, PVP and leveling talent. This is a power talent and does a massive amount for a player in all arenas of play. To spec this talent you must also chose infusion of Light.

You can place 1 talent points here. This talent is very powerful and has great potential in PVE and PVP healing.

To activate the 5th line we HAVE to spend 5 points in the 4th line of the Holy tree. In my View of PVE healing, I have selected 1 points in Beacon of Light 3 in Speed of Light, and 1 in Sacred Cleansing.

Line Five:

On the fifth line we have three talents we can choose from:A. Conviction
Gives you a 1%/2%/3% bonus to damage and healing for 15 sec after causing a critical effect from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

You can place 3 talent points here. This talent excellent for PVP, PVE and leveling as Holy. This proc is amazing and speaks for itself. You can have up to 9% bonus healing if you crit 3 times in quick succession. This will add a major boost when using Divine Favor and Under the effects of Bloodlust/Heroism. It is also a great proc to have running in the times you need to use Divine Plea

B. Aura Mastery

This is explained in more depth in the Spell section. This talent remains unchanged in 4.0.1

C. Paragon of Virtue
Reduces the cool down of your Devine Protection by 10/20sec and the cool down of your Avenging Wrath by 30/60sec.

Two points here, and an all round good talent for PVE, PVP and leveling talent. Reduced timers on clutch cool downs are always a good thing.

To activate the 6th line we HAVE to spend 5 points in the 5th line of the Holy tree. In my View of PVE healing, I have selected 6 points this tier, maxing out all talents.

Line Six:

On the sixth line we have two talents we can choose from:A. Tower of Radiance (dependant on Beacon of Light)
Healing the target of your Beacon of Light with Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light has a 33%/66%/100% chance to generate a charge of Holy Power.

You can place 3 talent points here. This talent excellent for PVP, PVE and leveling as Holy. The generation of Holy power allows you to use mana free abilities

B. Blessed Life
You have a 50%/100% chance to gain a charge of Holy Power whenever you take direct damage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 2 seconds.

You can place 2 talent points here. This talent excellent for PVP and leveling as Holy. In PVE I do not think it will be as common to reap the rewards from the talent, but the generation of Holy power allows you to use mana free abilities

To activate the 7th line we HAVE to spend at least 30 points in the Holy tree. In my View of PVE healing, I have selected 3 points in Tower of Radiance, and Two in Blessed Life. If I find myself taking little direct damage, I may respec 2 points into Enlightened Judgments for the extra distance on Judgment.

Line Seven:

On the last line we have one talent:

Light of Dawn
Send a wave of healing energy before you, healing yourself and all friendly targets up to 30 yards away for small amount.

This is one of the kinds of heals that Paladins have not yet fully enjoyed. An AOE heal. This talent is probably going to benefit PVE healing more so than anything, but for an Instant cast, it's certainly no small contender in PVP either.

As you can see, we have 4 remaining unspent talent points. Once you have specced on the 7th line of Holy, you can start using points in other trees. And there are some talents in the other trees you should seek. The first is in the Protection Tree.

For our supplemental talent points; I suggest: A. Divinity - Protection Tree
Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 2%/4%/6%.

You can place 3 talent points here. This talent excellent for PVP and PVE healing. As a passive ability, I find this essential and am sad they did not keep this Talent in Holy, as was originally proposed.

This is more for PVP Damage and Leveling, as PVE healers only get one spell that consumes Holy power. As that spell is on a cool down longer than the life of Holy power, PVE healers do not want this at level 80.

C. Crusade - Protection Tree
Increases the damage of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous and Templar's Verdict by 10/20/30% and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 10/20/30%

At 80 I would suggest PVE healers put 1 points here, seems as Holy Shock assisted by Daybreak is a very tasty spell to use, having 20% extra to a double barreled Holy Shock will be very nice for healing. It wont be that bad for PVP healing or Holy DPS either.

So as a good solid build for PVE healing between patch day and Cataclysm, here is what I recommend;

Once you choose your talents, be sure to hit the "Learn" as this will lock your points in. A much called for feature of 4.0.1 is error proof talent trees. You can left click to add a talent, and right click to remove a talent. Once you hit "Learn" it locks your choice in. Word of warning; it cost me 52g to respec a locked talent tree in 4.0.1 PTR; so be very clear on your tree before you lock it.

Glyphs.

The Glyph system has been changed. When you open your talent tree you will notice a tap that says "Glyph" upon clicking the button you will see something like this:

Minor Glyphs and Major Glyphs remain the same in terms of functionality. We now have Prime Glyphs as well. Here is a list of all the Glyphs availible to Palidins of all spec. I have highlited the ones in RED that I feel will be best served on a PVE Holy Paladin.

Prime

Crusader Strike - Increases the critical strike chance of Crusader Strike by 5%.Divine Favor - Increases the duration of Divine Favor by 10 sec.
Exorcism - Your Exorcism causes an additional 20% of its damage over 6 sec.
Hammer of the Righteous - Increases the damage of both the physical and Holy components of Hammer of the Righteous by 10%.Holy Shock - Increases the critical effect chance of Holy Shock by 5%.
Judgement - Your Judgement deals 10% more damage.Seal of Insight - While Seal of Insight is active, the effect of your healing spells is increased by 5%.
Seal of Truth - Your Seal of Truth also grants 10 expertise while active.
Shield of the Righteous - Increases the damage of Shield of the Righteous by 10%.
Templar's Verdict - Increases the damage of Templar's Verdict by 15%.Word of Glory - Increases the healing done by Word of Glory by 10%.

Major

Ascetic Crusader - Reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike by 30%.Beacon of Light - Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.
Cleansing - Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse by 20%.
Consecration - Increases the duration and cooldown of Consecration by 20%.
Dazing Shield - Your Avenger's Shield now also dazes targets.Divine Plea - Your Divine Plea provides an additional 5% of your total mana.
Divine Protection - Removes the physical damage reduction of your Divine Protection, but increases the magical damage reduction by 20%.Divinity - Your Lay on Hands grants twice as much mana as normal and also grants you as much mana as it grants your target.
Focused Shield - Your Avenger's Shield hits 2 fewer targets, but for 30% more damage.
Hammer of Justice - Increases your Hammer of Justice range by 5 yards.
Hammer of Wrath - Reduces the mana cost of Hammer of Wrath by 100%.Hand of Salvation - Hand of Salvation no longer permanently reduces threat over time but instead reduces all threat as long as Hand of Salvation lasts.
Holy Wrath - Your Holy Wrath now also stuns Elementals and Dragonkin.Light of Dawn - Reduces the cooldown of Light of Dawn by 10 sec and the amount healed by 20%.Long Word - Your Word of Glory heals for 50% less up front, but provides an additional 50% healing over 6 sec.
Rebuke - Reduces the mana cost of Rebuke by 100%.
Turn Evil - Reduces the casting time of your Turn Evil spell by 100%, but increases the cooldown by 8 sec.

Minor

* Blessing of Kings - Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%.
* Blessing of Might - Reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Might by 50%.* Insight - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%.
* Justice - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Justice by 50%.* Lay on Hands - Reduces the cooldown of your Lay on Hands spell by 2 min.
* Righteousness - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Righteousness by 50%.
* Truth - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Truth by 50%